On January 20，the 2011 Directors Conference for Overseas Offices of National Tourism Administration (CNTA) was held in Beijing. CNTA Chairman Shao Qiwei particularly attended the conference and delivered an important speech.

After reports given by overseas offices in Tokyo, Seoul, New York, Moscow etc, Shao Qiwei emphasized that every effort should be making to develop tourism into a strategic pillar industry and the modernizing service industry that satisfied the masses. He said, “During the promoting of international tourism cooperation, we should not only pay attention to the growth of outbound tourists and communication size, but also emphasize on the two strategic cooperation with the powerful tourist countries, destinations and areas, to push the tourism going forward and its combination with other industries.”

As the enhance of the overall national strength and the status rising of China in the international society, tourism gets a more and more important function in the country’s diplomacy. Shao Qiwei indicated, “we should strengthen tourism development while promoting diplomacy. We need to enhance the concepts of international and national market, work hard to drive the outbound and inbound tourist market’s exchange – tourist source exchange, new tourist market exchange as well as the exchanges in tourism investment and opening up.”

Relevant news in Chinese: 邵琪伟：配合国家大外交打好旅游这张牌